But that was in another country
by hakuen
Summary: The one where Val was banished from the Waste for a year. [written for AirgiodSLV for Yuletide 2018.]


Not three days after the Scholar Mage left, Val was gone from the Waste.

Nobody bothered to tell Alin, but he knew when the link he'd forged between them on that afternoon slipped away. By the time four days passed, he couldn't even tell if Val was alive, and they'd _always_ had that much of a connection.

As dramatic as he usually mocked himself as being whenever he told the story later, it was the plain truth that, with the cushioning Val had somehow provided now stripped away from his raw mind, he expected to go mad, perhaps die.

Somehow the days stretched on. And then Gorynel Desse came; the worst of his memories, along with the pain, settled into a quiet blur. Unfortunately, the nightmares stayed.

Waiting to die and unconsciously reaching out for Val became plotting to leave and track him down. The second time he was hauled back to Ostinhold by various cousins, it became studying Laddering until the Rising could no longer deny his value, no matter his age. His mother resigned herself eventually to losing another son to the Rising; he politely managed not to point out that she had lost him to magic at birth.

Weeks passed. Then, late one winter night, Taig appeared at the gates.

* * *

"He can't write to you." The lines of exhaustion in Taig's face were arranged in an even more grim pattern than when he'd told their mother he'd have to leave again within half a day or risk more lives than his own. "It was part of the arrangement. No returning, no contact at all—"

" _Why?_ " Alin's voice sounded harsh even to himself. "What possible reason could there be to—"

"Whatever went wrong in your magic affected him too and everyone knows it. ...Everyone who matters for decisions like this. They don't care that it wasn't your fault, they don't care that he can't somehow gain magic or pass along mutations or—anything. A Mage, no matter how poor—I'm sorry to speak so, but in some sense you're crippled, is that right?"

Through gritted teeth, Alin said, "I suppose it must be a fair assessment. To someone."

Taig just looked even more exhausted, and said, "Right. Desse said you had some connection that could only be broken by distance. Old lady Maurgen and our dear sister convinced everyone it should be a terrible emergency, and shipped Val off before he could get his bearings."

Alin winced.

"His wits came back enough at the last moment to blackmail the both of them," the lines eased up enough to allow a twinkle into Taig's eyes, "though Lady Sefana still insisted on his breaking that magical...whatever you did. He's coming back in a year, said it'll be over their fallen bodies if needed."

Biting his lip against a smile, Alin shook his head. "Forever the perfect Wastrel." But he couldn't help being disturbed by the way Taig spoke of the link, and it couldn't be a quarter of what the rest were saying. "I hope they realize that it doesn't matter how far he goes, it doesn't take magic to keep him close to his friends." It had taken him some considerable time in the recent long nights of staring at the ceiling to articulate that—the one thing in this Wraith-accursed world he could depend on was Valirion Maurgen's loyalty.

Taig was giving him an odd look.

"What?"

"I wouldn't say 'his friends' so much as 'you,' but that's all right." Flopping down onto Alin's bed, Taig kicked off his short boots and stretched out, eyes starting to go hazy right away.

Scrunching up his nose, Alin returned the odd look, with a bit of a glare added. "It's not my fault if the rest of the world isn't intelligent enough to value him properly."

The only reply was a hum, as Taig hit his limit of dealing with this conversation, or at least this day. Alin was left stuck between fuming and amusement as, within a minute, his brother's familiar ripping snores began to ring out.

"I don't know how you're entrusted with anything requiring stealth."

* * *

It had been two days in Pinderon, then a week to Cantratown, switching horses and trading messages between the Rising members stretched across the countryside. Val was on mail duty, was what it came down to, and it was absolutely wonderful.

...Except for one small, insignificant, all-important detail. He was missing half of his self.

That link, it hadn't been anything new, not really. More intense, more clear. The sense of each other, though, that'd been around almost as long as Alin.

With each day further from Ostinhold, he felt... lessened, somehow, and as though nerves he hadn't even been aware of were being exposed, scraped down, over and over.

The layer of softness he'd never known existed over his less civilized impulses was fading and he was wary of what might emerge.

* * *

Cantratown, now.

She was a lovely girl, enormous dark eyes, long lush hair. He'd never been one to turn down a fine offer of an evening when he wasn't obligated elsewhere, and it turned out to be quite a fine one indeed.

And another evening, and a third. A week.

At last he was given another route. Up along Tillin Lake, all the way out to Shainkroth. No knowing when he'd return, he told her. She was unbothered, laughing and telling him her bedroom door was always open when he came back to Cantratown.

It would be several months before he took her up on it. Months of circling the world, never losing his sense of something missing, the ache. He had plenty of good times out there—making friends everywhere, taking lovers as they found him, laughing and telling stories and fighting.

At last it was coming up on St. Agvir's Day again, and near enough a year that whether others liked it or not, he'd return to the Waste. To... become whole again. Or so he hoped, at least, if it was missing his best friend that was to blame, as he suspected. His best friend who had apparently done some freaky magic thing on them when too young to know otherwise, but it couldn't be helped, and it wasn't as though he minded anyway. As long as he could return to Alin.

* * *

A few times more, over the subsequent year of coming back and forth between the Waste and his duties, he visited Cantratown. A few times more, he visited a certain lady's bed. Since becoming able to return to Ostinhold between messenger routes and odd jobs, both himself and Alin were far happier, Alin more stable—and asking when he could join the Rising properly, but so far he was still considered too young, and Val did nothing to discourage that assessment. Alin wouldn't need protection forever, by any means, but for now... he was still disconcertingly fragile at the oddest times.

* * *

At the end of the year 963, there were two major shifts in Valirion Maurgen's life:

Geria Ostin drove Alin away from the family for good and into the Rising, letting the two of them be part of each other's every day once more. And Rina Firennos informed him that, during the short time he'd spent with her around Rosebloom week, they had conceived a child.


End file.
